Syria: we're being guilted into a war against our better interests and our higher reason

"Decisions have not been taken," says David Cameron about Syria. And that's probably the first lie of this war.

There's our brilliant PM on the BBC – chin firm, eyes blue – talking about chemical weapons, making the case, arguing the odds, letting the dogs off the leash, putting a bit of stick about. "I don't believe we can let that stand," Cameron says, big head nodding. "This is not about getting involved in a Middle Eastern war or changing our stance in Syria or going further into that conflict." No! No! No! It's just about standing well back and throwing a couple of missiles at Damascus. It's "proportionate", says Dave.

[Galloway on Twitter writes, "The Arab League - largely a bunch of belly-dancing brute dictators - endorse yet another Imperial attack upon their own Arab people". Now that's what I call a proportionate response!]

Next up: Nick Clegg. He furrows his brow and stares down sadly at the interviewer – as though reading cue cards held aloft by a crying midget. What Assad did is "a repugnant crime and a flagrant abuse of international law." Whether or not Assad actually did what Nick says Assad did is, by this point, moot. Nick wants us to go to war, so he's going to use words like "repugnant" and "flagrant" to twist that knot in our stomach and make us feel like we really want this war, too. Whether we actually do or not

Not much mention of "national interest" on the telly yet. That's because we don't have any national interest in Syria, so instead this is one of those Lifetime Movie wars that's all about deciding what's best for other people and then doing it for them. It's HUMANITARIAN and who on Earth would opposed a HUMANITARIAN war? Someone who who would stand by and watch while a puppy drowns?

Yes, that's right Britain, we're actually being guilted into a war against our better interests and our higher reason. We're being told to "think of the children" rather than simply think – and it's not just the politicians who are whipping things up. The TV is creating the climate and here's how:

1. Bring on the experts to talk about the politics, logistics, statistics, inevitability of it all. We knew a war was imminent the moment David Owen appeared on the BBC to discuss the road map to peace. What does this man do in-between conflicts? Sit at home in the dark in silence in TV makeup, waiting patiently for the phone to ring?

2. Play up the sadness and the suffering, leave the facts until later. Remember when the BBC used a photo of a massacre in Iraq to illustrate a massacre in Syria? A small mistake that perhaps betrayed a subconscious preference for good visuals over journalistic detail. Now their commentators are letting words like "alleged" or "unverified" or "possible" go missing in all their talk about chemical attacks, replaced by photos of the dead and the verbal drum beat of "something must be done, something must be done". When it happens, this war is going to be part Top Gun, part Live Aid.

3. Create that sense of exciting imminence, like it's all building towards something. "Is it war yet, General Suchandsuch?" the interviewer asks. "I'd say it's about 45 per cent war," he replies. "Or three quarters. But the bang-bang-bang isn't far away!" Oh, goody.

How odd, when a war in Syria is opposed by the vast majority of the public, that the voices against it are so few and far between and the voices for it seem to be everywhere and getting louder. Diane Abbott says she might quit Labour if it endorses an attack (every cloud has a silver lining) but her party doesn't really hold a position anyway – and no one would probably notice if they did. No, the two great estates of the political establishment and TV are coming together to put a case for war that conspires to make it feel both moral and inevitable. Which makes that much promised parliamentary debate feel like a fraud. But then, I never held out much hope for Parliament to make the right decision in the first place. I don't trust MPs to regulate porn, let alone war.